That Thin Line
by Blue Shadowdancer
Summary: Stella's worried about Mac. But as the bodies begin to come in, she doesn't realise how much danger they're both about to be in. Probably Mac/Stella. Now complete! Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Not mine. You know that.**

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**That Thin Line**

It's not a good day today. Sometimes it gets to you, this work. Every life lost is a bitter waste, every life lost leaves someone to grieve for them, and these are the kind of thoughts running through my head, along with worry. Worry about my partner, to be precise. He has a way of attracting worry from everyone. Sometimes I think I can almost see it hanging round him like a black shroud, one which everyone apart from him sees.

What are we here for, anyway? We walk around for a while, and then we die. We all die in the end, and don't I know it. My life is spent looking at death, chronicling the what-ifs. If that woman hadn't taken the shortcut through that alley. If that married man hadn't let that drunk girl give him a lipstick kiss. If that boy hadn't been introduced to drugs by his best mate.

There's always a tipping point. A clear, knife-edge of an instant where fate stands divided, before the slightest atomic imbalance pushes the events of the future down one side or the other, rolling and gathering momentum, unstoppable now. Always the little things. A girl leaving a magazine on the floor, so that her father slips on it later, dropping and breaking a stack of plates. And the magazine and the tiny, insignificant chance that led to it sliding off the table is the tipping point, because there is an argument and the girl storms out of the apartment and draws the attention of a man who had been lurking in a shadowed street for a girl like her. All because of that one event, her death rolls unstoppably down onto her. I can't seem to forget things like that.

So. Nothing like a job like this to give you a sense of perspective, really. And nothing like this job for teaching you how important it is to be able to switch off perspective most of the time. Otherwise you can forget the distinctions and just float unaffected above all these cases on a wave of irony, or you can let all the sadness and the horror overwhelm you. You decide which is worse.

So here I am. It's sometime after midnight and the windows are black. I'm standing with a glass wall between me and the man I'm watching. Two different kinds of glass walls, to be honest. I'm watching him and I'm wondering where his own personal tipping point is, and if I'll be able to recognise it when it comes, or if it's already past and I've missed it.

He's in the revolving chair with the back that tilts. It's tilted now as he's leaned right back, head hanging unsupported, eyes closed. I feel what I always feel when I see him like this; sadness, pity, frustration. But most of all I just feel helpless, because with Mac every now and then something'll happen to send him slowly sliding back down into his own personal hell. He doesn't sleep then, just works long sleepless nights at the lab because he doesn't want to run the risk of dreaming. Of course, lack of sleep doesn't solve any problems, but he just keeps on going. And there's nothing I can do to help him.

I don't know if he's asleep at the moment. It's difficult because I want him to go home, I know that he really needs someone to make him go home and get some proper rest, but on the other hand I don't want to wake him up.

"Stella?" I turn around and see Hawkes leaning on a doorframe, his pose suggesting that he's been there for several minutes.

"Hi. Aren't you off shift now?" I reply, knowing exactly what his response to that will be.

"You're off shift too. So's Mac," he points out.

"Yeah, well, Mac spends his life here, you know that," I say, feeling suddenly very tired and very helpless.

Hawkes walks forwards until he's standing next to me at the glass wall. I'm certain now that Mac's asleep, but we're speaking softly so that he can't hear us if he's not. "Have you told him to go home?" he asks.

I laugh quietly. There is a bitter undercurrent to my laughter, and I know that Hawkes picks it up.

"What did he say?"

"I don't know. Nothing. Something stupid. I think he said he still had the paperwork to do, and that he'd go home when he'd finished."

Hawkes chuckles. "Yeah, he's doing a lot of work at the moment."

Despite my mood, a smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. "What do you think I should do?"

"Wake him up, drive him to either his or your apartment, then drug him."

"Drug him? Are you serious?"

"Do you think I'm serious?"

"I have no idea if you are or not!" I'm just about suppressing a proper laugh now. This conversation is turning surreal. I think Hawkes and I must be nearly as sleep-deprived as Mac is.

"Relax Stell, I was joking," he grins. "Although I suppose I _could_ write a prescription…"

"Tempting, but no thanks," I say, grinning back.

"Anyway, I'll be off. You'll probably have more luck on your own." He slaps my shoulder in a good-luck sort of way and turns at the lift entrance to wave.

"Traitor!" I call, and he waves again as the doors close.

Left alone, I turn and study Mac for a few more minutes, trying to work out what to say. Then I push open the door and walk inside. Despite the fact that I mean to wake him up, I find myself walking only on the balls of my feet, avoiding contact between the floor and my noisy heels.

"Mac," I say gently. The idea of sleep is generally considered to be in order to relax, but Mac doesn't look relaxed. His face is drawn tight into a frown. He doesn't stir.

"Mac," I say, louder. "Mac?"

I grab his shoulder and shake him, hard. His head lolls from side to side. "Mac!"

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**Let me know what you think please? I'll update in a couple of days. Blue x**


	2. Chapter 2

I can see his chest almost imperceptibly rising and falling, but that doesn't stop panic overriding common sense, and my fingers are feeling for a pulse on his neck. His eyelids open slowly, slowly. He blinks, squeezing his eyes shut and opening them again.

"Mac?" I ask. I have no idea what's going on, no idea whether I should be leaving him to wake up slowly, or whether I should be seriously worried. I'm leaning more towards seriously worried.

He groans, and I decide to take this as an encouraging sign. "Mac?" Repeating his name is all I can think to say.

"Stell." The word is barely audible.

"Are you alright?" It may be a stupid question, but once again I can't think of anything else.

"Yeah. Yeah. Tired."

"Just tired? Mac, you look dreadful!" I can hear the shrill, panicked edge to my voice.

"Tired. Sorry…" His eyes are closing again. I shake his arm, fumbling in my pocket for my phone without looking. I don't know what's happening here. I'm scared.

"Mac. Mac. Stay awake. Please." I find the right button on the speed dial and hold it down, pressing the cold plastic hard against my ear, hear the tinny ringing through the speaker. "Come on, come on," I'm muttering, and it probably applies to Mac too.

Finally there's the click of connection. "Hawkes."

"It's Stella." My words are tumbling out of my mouth, almost tripping over themselves in their haste to be heard. "Where are you?"

"In the garage, just got into my car. You ok?"

"Can you get back up here? Please," I tack on as an afterthought.

"Coming." He hangs up. I wait. I shake Mac's arm. I keep saying his name. I check for his pulse again, pointlessly. I look at his desk, looking for something, anything, to explain this. How long does it take to get up from the garage? I pick up my phone again and force myself to put it down again.

I'm suddenly, unreasonably angry. This shouldn't be happening. He needs to wake up. On impulse, knowing I'll regret it, I slap his face, using more force than I should.

"Oww…" he mutters, and I do it again, caring more about getting a response from him than about hurting his feelings.

"Can you hear me?"

His eyes open again, wider than they did before, and I think that I have never seen a better sight. "Stella…"

"Stay with me, ok? Stay here."

"Yeah. Stell. What…"

I crouch beside him and squeeze his hand gently. "Don't worry. It's going to be fine, ok?"

"Mmm…" He lifts his head a little, and I reach up and support him, standing, so that my arm reaches around his shoulders, his head in the crook of my elbow. I'm still holding his hand. I'm not letting go of him.

At last I hear what my ears have been straining for – the single sharp ding of the elevator. Hawkes walks out and sees me. He starts running, and I wonder how he knows that something's this wrong, because he can't see Mac from there. My face must have told him. Flack once said that I had a terrible poker face.

Hawkes shoves open the glass door and takes the scene inside the office in at a glance. This is when I'm eternally thankful to whatever gods are listening that Hawkes has been trained as a doctor, and one who'll check on the patient before asking superfluous questions. He doesn't bother asking Mac if he's ok – I'm sure it's extremely obvious that he's not – and instead is going quickly through the basic checklist of heart rate, temperature, pupil dilation.

"What happened?" he asks as he's doing this. I'm not sure who the question is addressed to, but I'm the only one who's going to answer.

"I don't know," I say, and my voice sounds strangely jerky. "I don't know. I don't know what's happening. I just… I just came in here to wake him up, and he won't wake up, he won't wake up properly. I didn't know what to do. I don't know."

"Sit down," he says, but I shake my head stubbornly. Can't leave Mac.

"God," I say faintly. "I should have done something before. I should have noticed. I should've… God, I don't know, I should've done something."

"Not… not your fault…" comes a shaky whisper, and I almost cry with relief because Mac's finally focusing properly on what's going on, even if it's obviously a struggle.

"Mac?" Hawkes's voice is firmly authoritative, and I'm only too happy to silently hand control of this surreal situation over to him. "Are you with us?"

"Yeah. Umm, I think so."

"That's good. How are you feeling?"

"I…I don't know. Don't feel awake. Head… My head hurts." He's forcing the words out and he's blinking too often and having to jerk his eyelids open again each time. "Stell?"

"It's ok. I'm here. It's going to be ok." I squeeze his hand, and he squeezes my hand back, but with only a fraction of the pressure.

Hawkes hooks a chair with his foot and pulls it towards him, sitting so that he's on a level with Mac. "What happened, do you know?"

"No. Don't know. Sorry."

"Don't worry, it's ok. Now, have you taken any medication today? Prescription or otherwise?"

Fleetingly, and with a flash of guilt, I think back to not so many minutes ago, jokingly talking about drugging him. Misplaced humour if there ever was any.

He shakes his head slightly. "No."

"Alcohol?"

I'm struck with the sudden hysterical urge to laugh. Mac Taylor, drinking on the job? Yeah, that'd be the day.

"No."

"Any head trauma?"

"No."

"What have you had to eat and drink today?"

"Coffee. Water. A sandwich. Umm, it had salad in."

"Right. Did everything come from the break room?"

"Yeah."

"You're sure? You didn't get anything from a street vendor on the way in?"

"He didn't go home last night," I interject on his behalf.

"Mac," Hawkes says sternly, "That's not a good idea. You need to stop staying here overnight."

"You sound like Stella," Mac groans and Hawkes and I glace at each other, eyes meeting, and we can each see our own relief echoed there. If he's making jokes, that's surely a good sign.

"Ok, I'll drop it for now, but I'll make sure Stella gives you a proper lecture some other time." Hawkes's tone turns serious again. "I need to know what you remember."

"Umm… I was working. Paperwork. Stella came in. She told me to go home." I roll my eyes, but he can't see me and continues. "I don't know. I don't remember if I finished or not. I just remember feeling so heavy, tired. Then Stella shouting at me. That's it. Sorry."

Hawkes looks at me and raises his eyebrows. "Did you shout at him?"

"Well, yes. Sort of. When I was trying to get him to wake up."

Mac chuckles slightly. With his free hand he grabs the edge of his desk and pulls himself up so that he's sitting upright. I finally let go of his hand and push down the lever on his seat to prevent the back from tilting again. He rubs his eyes.

"Feeling better?" I ask.

"Yeah, a lot." He sounds better too. His voice is stronger now and he doesn't look quite so deathly pale anymore.

Hawkes stands. "If you don't mind, Mac, I'm going to take a blood sample from you and run it through tox. There's defiantly something in your system. We need to find out what it is."

"Ok," Mac agrees, and starts getting up. Hawkes and I simultaneously put our hands on his shoulders and force him back down into the chair.

"Don't get up; you'll probably just fall down again. I'll get a syringe and bring it back here. Stella, keep an eye on him!"

"Got it," I say, giving him a mock salute. Amazing how quickly the mood has recovered. Hawkes leaves, heading down the hall, and I seize the opportunity to sit in his vacated chair. Mac's rubbing his eyes again.

"Hey," I say quietly. "Are you ok?"

"I'll be fine in a minute," he reassures me. "I just…" He stops.

"What?" I ask, seeing him tense.

"Did you touch anything on my desk?" His tone is urgent.

"No, I don't think so. Is something missing?"

"Yes, the file. The one I was working on. It's not here."

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**Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing! Next update'll be sometime on Tuesday. Blue x**


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you sure?" I ask. "You didn't move it somewhere else?"

"No. No, I'm certain. I was working on it when you came in to tell me to go home, wasn't I?"

I think back. "You were filling in forms, I didn't see any of the details."

"Yes, there was only one lot to fill in, the Berrow case. It must have been those ones you saw."

"Did you finish?"

"I can't remember. Either finished or nearly finished, I think. But I know that I didn't leave the office after talking to you."

He starts looking around the room and I forestall him, getting up to look on the other side of the desk, on the floor, on top of cupboards. He's flicking through everything on his side of the desk, opening case files and sifting through stacks of paper hoping to find the file he's looking for hidden inside. I think that we both know already that it's hopeless.

"What's going on?" asks Hawkes. I didn't notice him come back in.

"Mac's file's gone. The one he was working on," I answer tersely.

"Damn. You sure?"

"Yes, very sure. Just looked everywhere for it, and Mac says he never left the room."

"No one came in to collect it from him?"

I hadn't thought of that possibility, but Mac's shaking his head. "No, definitely not. I needed to check something with Sid in the coroner's section, and I remember thinking it would have to wait until tomorrow because he'd already gone home. It should still be here."

"So someone must have taken it." Hawkes voices what we're all thinking. "I presume that after checking with Sid you'd have handed it straight over to the state attorney's office?"

"Yes, when I'd finished it would be all done apart from that, there was just a place where Sid forgot to sign."

"Right," I say, thinking this through. "So the only chance anyone would have of taking the file would be when it was here in your office?"

"Probably."

"So, if I wanted to steal something from your office, I'd wait for you to go home. But…"

"But Mac's got a habit of not going home," Hawkes interrupts. "I think I know what you're getting at."

"We need to test any cups you used, to start with," I begin.

"Don't worry about that, Stella," says Hawkes. "I'll do that now, put them in to be analysed, they should be ready in the morning. Mac, roll up your sleeve."

Mac complies and Hawkes expertly inserts the needle point into the vein inside his left elbow, drawing a few centilitres of blood. "Is he ok?" I ask as he removes the syringe and presses a piece of gauze to Mac's arm.

"Yeah, once he's slept of the rest of whatever he's been dosed with he should be," Hawkes reassures me. "He seems fine, but if you're worried then maybe you should take him to the hospital and get a second opinion."

"I'm here," Mac points out. "And I'm fine, I don't need the hospital."

"Your call. But Mac, you are _not_, under _any _circumstances, coming in to work tomorrow, got it?"

Surprisingly, he doesn't argue. I decide we'd better leave before he changes his mind. "Hawkes, are you sure you're ok with staying here on your own to get those samples?"

"It's fine Stell, don't worry. It shouldn't take long, anyway."

"If you're sure…"

"I'm very sure. Get going!"

We both help Mac clamber to his feet. He sways slightly, but remains upright when Hawkes cautiously removes his arm. "You ok?" I ask.

"I'm fine. But I'm glad the elevator works."

"Come on then."

I'm still supporting him and he's leaning on me quite heavily, our arms around each others' shoulders. Hawkes walks alongside as we leave the office, down the stairs and along the corridor to the elevator, where he presses the call button for us.

"Phone me in the morning, I'll have the results by then," he says.

"I'll_see_ you in the morning," I point out.

"No, you won't. You'll be making sure that Mac's ok, and I'm not expecting him to wake up early. And you need sleep yourself. It's half past twelve. So phone me when you get up."

"But…" I begin.

"Stella. It's not like I'll be working solo, Danny and Lindsay'll be here too."

The elevator doors chime as they open and I admit defeat, stepping inside with Mac. "Thank you," I say to Hawkes as the door closes, and I mean it for much more than covering for me on my shift the next morning. He waves.

We ride to street level, Mac and I, and once we're out of the building we find an empty cab and I give the driver my address. I don't think this registers with Mac and I'm glad, because there's absolutely no way I'm letting him go back to his on his own tonight, and he'd probably argue.

He's silent during the drive, head leant back against the seat-rest. His eyes are open, but he's not looking at me, and I watch him in the dim orange glow of the street lamps. I wonder if he realises how much other people worry about him sometimes. We may not be in the lab at the moment, but it seems that there's always a glass wall around him, wherever he is.

The cab stops and it takes me a moment before I jolt out of my thoughts and realise that we're in front of my apartment. I pay the driver and walk around the back of the cab to help Mac out. He stumbles as we walk through the entrance area, and I'm thankful that the elevator's working this week. It doesn't take long to reach my apartment, but it feels like ages to me. I fumble for my keys and twist them in the lock single-handed, and kick the door shut behind me with my foot. I'm taking most of Mac's weight now and he's walking along with his eyes closed. Walking being a verb I'm using loosely.

In my bedroom I push him down to sit on the bed and open my wardrobe, reaching for a drawstring bag on the floor. There's one of these at Mac's too – our "just in case" bags. In case of eventualities like this one. I pull out the t-shirt and joggers which Mac apparently considered nightwear when he packed them, and toss them to him.

"Want something to eat or drink?" I ask.

He shakes his head. His eyes are starting to fall closed again.

"Get changed before you fall asleep sitting there. I don't think you'll be very comfortable sleeping in your suit."

"Go away then," he says, managing the ghost of a smile. I laugh and leave the room.

I head into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water. The curtains aren't drawn and I look out into the night, the square points of light from other windows in other apartment blocks only serving to deepen the darkness surrounding them. The ever-present traffic is a soothing soundtrack.

I check my watch, and it's been about five minutes, so I figure Mac's had enough time to change. I turn into the corridor and he's standing in my bedroom doorway, holding onto the frame. His face is greyish, and I'm worried enough to snap at him.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask.

"What?" he asks, confused.

I realise what he's thinking and groan. "You think I'm letting you sleep on the couch?"

"I…"

"Don't be an idiot. You can barely stand. Just lie down and go to sleep." I grab his arm and force him back into my room. He doesn't say anything, and pretty much falls into the bed. I throw the duvet over him. His eyes are already closed.

"Sleep well," I whisper, but he doesn't reply.

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**As always, thank you so much for all your great feedback! Next chapter'll be Thursday. Blue x**


	4. Chapter 4

It feels late when I wake up, and I open my eyes to find that I'm on my couch, under the spare blanket. The wall clock tells me it's quarter to ten, and I blink in surprise. It's a long time since I've slept this far into the morning.

Mac's still asleep, as I see when I quietly push open the bedroom door. He's in exactly the same position as he was last night, except that his face looks a lot more peaceful now. I find myself smiling at him as I collect a change of clothes from the cupboards, as quietly as I can, although I suspect he'd sleep through a lot more noise than I'm currently making. When I leave the room I push the door almost closed, so that it rests against the edge of the frame, but so that hopefully I'll be able to hear when he wakes up. In the kitchen I put the kettle on and dial a number on my cell phone. It's answered almost at once.

"Hawkes."

"It's Stella."

"Good, I hoped you'd call soon. How's Mac?"

"Still asleep."

"I'm not surprised, to be honest."

"Have you got the results back from tox yet?"

"Yep, a while ago." There's a pause, and I suppose he's looking for the printout. "Here we go. He was definitely drugged, with a benzodiazepine. Temazepam. I'd say about 30mg, that would be consistent with him being dosed with it about two hours before the blood sample was taken. Does that sound like the right timeline?"

I think about it for a second. "That would probably be about half an hour after I spoke to him. Sounds about right."

"Ok, we'll run with that. Oh, and that case file's definitely been taken. We've been looking all through Mac's office, anywhere it might be, and we checked everywhere else we could think of too. He didn't show it to Sid, or file it with the state attorney, or anything else."

"Damn," I say. I carry my mug of coffee back into the living room and curl up on the couch. "So I'm guessing that the running theory is that someone was hanging around waiting for Mac to leave, and when it became obvious that he wasn't, they drugged him and then just walked into his office and took the file from his desk."

"Something like that. One of the coffee cups in his office tested positive, so we know how, we just have to work out who did it."

"Who else was on the case? The file?"

"Lindsay, but it was her night off so she was home early. Mac did all the form-filling, and she's been giving us all the details she knows. I'll fill you in later."

"Sure. So is Mac going to be ok?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. Actually, if you hadn't gone in there to try and wake him up, no one might have noticed that he'd been doped at all, we'd just have taken the fact that he would probably still be asleep at his desk when we arrived in the morning as due to the non-existent amount of sleep he usually gets."

"He looked terrible last night."

"That's normal if you try to wake up someone who's ingested that amount of temazepam two hours previously! I think you should be impressed that he did."

"Good," I say, relieved. "What time should I come in?"

Hawkes chuckles slightly. "My superior is asking me for orders?"

"For today only," I warn him.

"Keep an eye on Mac. Come in when you think that it's a good idea. We're good here for the moment I think, we'll call you if we need to."

"Ok. I'll see you soon then."

"Great. I got to go now, bye."

"Bye."

As I dress I'm running through the night's events in my head, trying to remember anything that would be helpful to this investigation. The trouble is, it's a big building and I often hardly notice who's moving on our floor. Add to that the fact that I was in one of the labs between the official end of shift and when I went to find Mac, and I'm no sort of witness at all.

I feel completely helpless. Someone drifted into our lab with the night-time shadows and slid easily past all the checks meant to prevent these eventualities. Last night I was thinking about the knife-edges fate throws at you, and that edge seems very close to all of our feet right now. It's all very well to pack a bag to be left at a friend's, but when you've come to where there was such a thin gap between losing that friend altogether it seems silly, pointless, children playing a game. Bang, one life gone.

This is a bad trail of thought to go down, so I find the case-files I brought home the other evening to work on, and didn't finish. If I'm going to be here all day I may as well do something useful. I force myself to concentrate, shutting off all other trains of thought and bolting the doors. Write. Don't think.

Maybe two or three hours go by, when I hear the pad of bare feet in the hall. I get up from the desk as Mac comes into the room. He stands just inside the door, uncertainty on his face.

"Hey," I say softly. "How're you feeling?"

"Tired," he says. "Confused. What are we doing here?"

"What do you remember?"

"Uh… Being at work… People shouting. It's all…blurred." He stops. "Did you slap me?"

I chuckle, and feel myself blush slightly at the same time. Yes, he_had_ to remember that. "Yes. Sorry. Do you remember anything else specifically?"

"No." His face creases with the effort of remembering. "What happened?"

I sigh, reluctant to have this conversation right now. "I brought you back here last night," I say, answering his first and least important question.

"Stell," he says. "What's going on?"

I sit in the armchair and gesture for him to take the couch, which he does. "Well. Someone drugged you and stole the Berrow case-file."

He blinks. "Last night?"

"Yes. We think it must have been at around ten o'clock; we found you at midnight."

"When you say 'we'…"

"Me and Hawkes. I tried to wake you up to tell you to go home and, well, you wouldn't wake up. That was why I slapped you; I was sort of hoping you wouldn't remember that. I called Hawkes."

"You said the file's been stolen? It didn't get taken to the state attorney's office?"

"No, we looked everywhere when you noticed it wasn't on your desk anymore. You said that there was something Sid needed to sign, so it definitely hadn't been filed, and I spoke to Hawkes earlier and he confirmed it. It's gone."

"I told you that? I don't remember…"

"Don't worry about it, it's not surprising. Hawkes took a blood sample from you last night and you had 30mg of temazepam in your system. Apparently amnesia's a common side effect, and anyway, I don't really think I can class the state you were in at the time as 'awake'."

"Oh." He sits back and I can see him digest the information. He presses the reddish area on the inside of his elbow. "I don't remember that either."

"You remember me slapping you, but not Hawkes sticking a needle in your arm?"

"Beggars can't be choosers."

I laugh. "Glad to see you've got your sense of humour back. Would you like anything to eat? Or drink?"

"Yes please."

"Which was that?"

"Both, if you don't mind. Can I use your shower?"

"Course. Your stuff's still in your bag; it's on the floor by the bed."

"Thanks."

I let him get up and leave the room, and wait to hear the bathroom door close, before getting up myself. Back in the kitchen I open and shut cupboards, deciding in the end that tomato soup and bread will do. The tin opener keeps sticking. It doesn't usually. I butter several slices of bread, rather unevenly, and cut the pile in half. The halves are jagged.

The soup heats up on the stove. Bubbles build up slowly under the surface and burst, almost in slow motion, throwing drops of the thick red liquid into the air, to fall back down and leave mini craters in the surface which persist for a few seconds. Then again. It's mesmerising to watch. I feel my eyes beginning to sting.

"Stella?"

I didn't hear him come in, but now he's right behind me. "Yeah?"

"Are you ok?"

I snap back into the present and blink quickly. "I'm fine. Lunch is ready."

We're both almost silent during the meal. There's only one topic on our minds at the moment, and neither of us feel like discussing it. As I'm carrying the crockery to the sink, the phone rings. Mac leaves the room and answers it. I pile the items I'm carrying into the sink to wash up later, and go to see who it is, managing to catch the tail end of the conversation.

"Yeah, I'll tell her. Bye."

"Who was that?" I ask.

"Danny. He wants to know if you can come in to work."

"Sure, I'll just get my stuff."

I collect the files from my desk and my coat from the back of a chair. Mac is waiting by the front door, clearly dressed to go outside. I fold my arms.

"What?" he asks.

"Are you serious?" I ask.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You promised Hawkes…" I begin, but he cuts me off.

"I don't remember that, do I?" he says, a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth.

I sigh, knowing that I'm not going to win here. "Ok, ok. Let's go and find a cab."

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**A/N: ** **I hope you're still enjoying this! Let me know what you think, and thank you for everyone who's been reviewing. Blue x**


	5. Chapter 5

Hawkes raises his eyebrows at me when Mac and I enter the layout room together. I shrug my shoulders and shake my head in mock despair.

"What've we got?" Mac asks.

"Not much so far," Lindsay begins.

"More precisely, nothing at all," Danny interrupts. "No prints on the cup that weren't yours, Mac. Same for your desk, door, everything. Nothing that can't be accounted for."

"We get anywhere with the actual drug?" I ask.

"Again, nope. Nothing unusual in the composition, not other foreign substances accompanying it. Temazepam's only available legally by prescription, but it's the most common benzodiazepine prescribed, and also's freely available illegally. So at the moment, it's a dead end."

"Maybe you'd better talk us through the file," suggests Hawkes.

"I thought Lindsay did that?" Mac asks.

"She didn't know all the details," Danny points out. "If you start from the beginning, we'll be able to hear all of it, and find which bits she got wrong."

Lindsay sighs audibly. Hawkes clears his throat. Mac coughs and covers his mouth for a second.

"Right," he says. "It was an open and shut case. Jack Berrow stopped at an ATM on his way home and withdrew $500. Our perp, Samuel West, watched him, followed him round the corner, and stabbed him from behind. Then he grabbed the money and took off."

"Definitely him?" I query.

"Yes, there were two witnesses who were looking out of a ground floor window. They called it in and identified West as the attacker from a line-up. Apart from that we had his prints on Berrow's jacket in his blood when he turned him over to get the money. We ran them through AFIS and West popped straight out with priors for drug possession and robbery. Flack picked him up, and the bloody clothes and knife were in plain sight in his apartment."

"So… what's the problem with him as the attacker?"

"That's precisely the point. There isn't one. He did it. Soon as Flack brought him to the precinct he confessed, said he wanted the money to buy drugs. Most of the money was in his pocket, Berrow's blood on it, and fingerprints from both him and Berrow, along with a packet of cocaine, some of which was already in his system."

"Where is he now?"

"In police custody, awaiting trial. No bail set."

"That's it?"

"That's it. Open and shut."

"This West guy," Danny says. "He live with anyone? Family? Girlfriend?"

"No, Flack said he lived alone. He was asked for next-of-kin, but said he didn't have anyone."

A silence spreads through the room, and is interrupted by Mac's cell phone ringing. He glances down at the display, then steps outside to take the call.

Hawkes turns to me. "I thought I said he wasn't to come in today?"

"Hey. You tell him that."

"I did."

"Well, tell him again. He's still not going to listen. Are we really at that much of a dead end?"

"Afraid so. We've been going over all the evidence from the case this morning. Like Mac said, it's wrapped up. All we actually lost were the forms, all of which can be refilled in. This isn't going to affect the outcome of the trial at all."

Mac walks back in. "DB in the park. Danny, you're with me on this one."

I meet Hawkes's pointed look. "Mac, I need Danny here, we still have some things to go over from our last case."

"Fine, Lindsay then."

"Lindsay knows the Berrow case details. She can fill me in on the specifics."

He sighs. "Do I have a choice?"

"Yes, you can stay in the lab. Or you can take Hawkes with you."

"Hawkes, get your coat." He walks out again and Hawkes follows with a wave and a shrug.

Danny laughs. "Well done with the 'don't let him come into work' there, Stell."

"Watch it," I say.

Lindsay has been sitting with her elbows resting on the layout table. Now she looks up. "Why would you steal a case file?" she asks.

I think about it. "Well… I might think that if the case file was gone the prosecution could fall through."

"So to take it for that reason, you'd probably be someone quite close to the killer."

"Yes, I mean, it's a big risk to take. But then you say West didn't have anyone close to him."

"No one that we know of," Danny points out. "He could have not wanted us to find out who was close to him."

"No," Lindsay says. "I processed his apartment. It's the kind of place where the rent's probably lower than a pizza take-out. Almost no personal effects, definitely no sign of a girlfriend. No mail anywhere, including in the trash. This guy was just a junkie on the way down."

"Phone records?" I ask.

"Only a handful of numbers, three of which are different take-out places near his apartment. He didn't seem to have many friends. One of the remaining numbers is flagged in the system as a known drug dealer who's being tracked to find his suppliers, so he's hands-off, not that he'd probably be able to give us anything we don't know. Final number is his landlord. I spoke to him earlier and he says West is always overdue with his rent, and answers his cell more often than his door. That's consistent with the records, as there's only incoming calls from his number, clustered every few weeks, lasting under two minutes each time."

"And according to Montana here, this complete lack of any leads is only 'not much so far'," says Danny, earning himself a glare from Lindsay.

She continues, undaunted. "Why else would you take a case file?"

"Hang on, there's a catch here, isn't there?" She grins at me. "You're asking me why I'd take _a_ case file, rather than _that_ case file?"

"Well, I was thinking that. I mean, there seems to be absolutely no reason why that file would be stolen by anyone, much less why someone would go to those lengths to get it. So what if it wasn't about that particular file?"

"Hold up here," Danny protests. "Someone decides that what they want is a random case file? And then it's not enough to grab one from someone's desk during the middle of the day when loads of people are walking about, but they have to go in late at night and drug the highest-ranking person in the building to take one?" He spreads his hands in front of him. "I don't buy it, Montana."

She shrugs. "I know. But I can't think of anything else."

* * *

**Continued thanks to those lovely people who've been reviewing! Blue x**


	6. Chapter 6

It's about an hour later that I get a call-out. Danny drives the two of us down to the edge of the East River and parks in a patch of wasteland next to the patrol car. Flack waves us over and we grab our cases.

"What've we got?" I ask.

"Male, white, no ID, looks to be in his mid-twenties. Single gunshot wound to the forehead. Nice to see you too, Stella."

"No blood spatter," Danny calls. "Dump job."

"Now aren't you the genius," Flack says. "I don't have one of them fancy science degrees, but even I worked that one out."

I wink at him. "Long shift?"

He sighs. "Don't you know it. I was all ready to head home ten minutes ago, call came in as I was getting up. Thought it was my lucky day when Angell got the body in the park earlier instead of me."

"Well, cheer up." I grab my camera from around my neck and start photographing the surrounding area, while Danny deals with the body. "Not much to go on here. We'll be done soon, I think." There's a drag trail, and I follow it, taking pictures as I go.

"Car was parked here." Flack's wandered off ahead of me. "Tyre treads, but no definition. Drag marks finish here so the guy definitely was dumped from it."

I catch up to him and photograph these marks too. Flack's right, there's nowhere near enough detail to run the treads through the database. "Seems like it's my day for cases with no evidence. Sid had better get something good off the body."

"Yeah, I heard about the stuff with Mac. He ok?"

"He's fine, he and Hawkes are at Angell's scene in the park." I don't really feel like talking about Mac just now. Too close for comfort.

"No leads, huh?"

"Nothing." I think Flack catches my mood from my tone, and he doesn't reply, just nods in understanding. We wander back to Danny. "Got anything?"

"Apart from the hole in his head? Nope. Looks like a straight-forward execution to me. Through-and-through. Any witnesses?"

Flack snorts. "You kidding me Messer? Round here, even in the unlikely event that someone did see anything, they'll have developed a sudden and specific form of memory loss. Patrol car spotted him. They drive round here every now and again, pick up the bodies."

"Well, let's get this body back to Sid, see what he can tell us."

"You do that. I'll stay here, get proper statements from the officers who found him. Maybe I'll swing by the labs later on and see what you've got."

- - - - -

"COD was a single gunshot wound to the head, no surprises there." Sid peers down at my John Doe through his glasses, face creased in concentration. "I suppose you want anything that would point to this _not_ being a straightforward shooting?" he asks.

"Yeah. Got anything?" I ask, without much hope.

He surprises me. "Oh yes. Definitely."

"Really?"

"Yep. Let's start with the wrists." He lifts the right forearm and points. "You see that?" I look closely and can see a faint reddish band. Sid hands me the black light and the band springs into sharp relief. There is a matching band on the other wrist. "Sub-dermal bruising. John Doe here was tied up."

"Any other marks?"

"None from ties, but look at this." He gestures, and I move the light up to his face. "There. Around the gunshot hole."

"Muzzle stamps?"

"Exactly. Look just there too, under his chin."

There are more of them, in the soft triangle of tissue above the larynx. "Interesting. Can you tell when these were done?"

"I'd put them just before time of death, which was at about ten this morning." He unclips his glasses and looks at me. "Someone dumped his body in full daylight, in the middle of the day. That's not exactly usual, is it?"

"No." I shake my head. "Someone obviously wanted something from this guy. Whoever did this tied him up and threatened him with a gun, right before shooting him. I'd say that means that either our vic refused to hand over the information our killer wanted, or else the killer never intended to let this guy go and shot him anyway after he had what he wanted from him."

"Almost my conclusions. But we're not finished here yet."

I study his face again. "Are those more bruises, around the jawline?"

"Yes, very faint but definitely there. A mark for each fingertip, do you see? Like this." He places his hand along the jawbone, thumb on one side of the cheek, fingers on the other, holding the lower half of the face. "The vic's mouth was held in place, either closed or open. It's possible that it was both – the mouth was wrenched open, something forced inside, then closed again. Which brings me to this."

He reattaches his glasses, opens the vic's mouth, and shines a flashlight inside for me to see. "Look. You see those shallow cuts in the tongue and on the roof of the buccal cavity? For comparison, they're about the same depth as paper cuts. They extend all the way to the oesophagus, so either something was forced down his throat, or he was made to swallow something. Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter, as I'd expect to see a lot more damage if was the other option."

"That could explain the muzzle stamps," I suggest. "Instead of wanting information, the killer was forcing John Doe eat something that cut his mouth up."

"Some form of torture, perhaps? It seems odd though, I'd have thought the gun pressed against his face would be torture enough."

I gesture at the body. "I see you haven't opened him up yet."

"I was just waiting for you. Let's find out what his last meal was."

"And there I was thinking that the condemned man got to choose it," I say.

"Evidently not in this case." He picks up a scalpel and makes the Y incision across the chest, cutting through the layers of skin and fat and muscle. He peels the layers back, exposing the ribcage and the soft organs beneath, down to below the diaphragm. Gently, so as not to damage whatever is inside, he slices through the top of the stomach, so that the contents are visible. I take a long look, and blink in astonishment. I'm hardly able to process what I'm seeing.

Sid and I stare at one another. "Well," he says. "I did give my opinion on those cuts in his mouth, but I wasn't expecting to be proved right."

I take a pair of forceps from the tray of surgical implements and extract one of the several round objects from the deflated bag of his stomach. This one was wedged right at the end of the oesophagus; the last to be swallowed. The victim was probably shot before it had quite reached the stomach with the others. I place it on a flat metal tray, Sid takes a second pair of forceps, and together we tease it open. There's a horrible feeling building up in my chest.

Protected from both the moisture in the throat and the acid in the stomach, I can quite clearly see the words in strong black ink inside the now-teased-open but previously screwed-up ball of paper. Half of an oh-so-familiar A4 sheet. My eyes jump to certain phrases. Berrow. West. Robbery. Case closed.

And the signature. _Detective Mac Taylor_.

* * *

**A/N: So, do please tell me what you think! You've all been giving me wonderful reviews, particularly Susi07, kaidiii and Maja 16. To those who've told me they're enjoying Stella's thoughts, especially Susi07, I'm not ignoring you, I just had to get the story moving along a little and couldn't squeeze them in. ;-) I'll update again in a couple of days. Blue x**


	7. Chapter 7

When Mac walks into my office later, there are several balls of screwed up paper on my desk – clean ones. "Bored?" he asks.

"Did anyone tell you about my case?"

"That your John Doe had my case file in his stomach?" He gives a weary laugh. "Yes, everyone I've run into."

"Mac –"

"What's with all the paper?" he interrupts.

"Just checking something. Two of the paper balls from the vic's stomach had saliva inside as well as on the outside. The sheet was scrunched up, forced into the vic's mouth, unscrewed, torn in half, then reformed into two balls. Our killer learned from that. A whole sheet was too large to fit down someone's throat."

"Does that lead us anywhere?"

"No. Only that he hadn't done this trick before."

"So why did you need all this paper to check?"

"I didn't. I was frustrated. Mac –"

"How much evidence have you got?"

He's interrupting me again, but I've had enough experience with Mac Taylor to know that he's perfectly willing to go on avoiding questions indefinitely. Easier to just answer his questions and get them out of the way. "That's what's frustrating me. We've got nothing. No fingerprints on the paper, or anywhere else on the victim. No DNA on the paper that doesn't belong to the victim. Not so much as an eyelash or fibre on him, or at the scene, that shouldn't be there. Even the gunshot wound was a through-and-through, so no bullet to run through IBIS." I let out a groan and drop my head into my hands, elbows resting on my desk.

I hear him pull up another chair and sit down. "We'll get something."

"No, Mac, we won't. There's nothing at all. Two cases, you and John Doe, both of which are absolute dead ends." I look up, about to try my luck again with getting him to actually talk to me. "And speaking of which –"

"You'll get him," he repeats.

I find myself thinking of the pile of case files on the edge of his desk. He probably is too. I'm about to try and talk to him again, hoping he won't move to cut me off this time, when a young lab tech knocks nervously on my door and hands a printed sheet of test results to Mac. He glances at them, then gets up and leaves without a word, turning to give me a quick smile in the doorway.

I drop my head again, pushing my fingers into my hair and forming fists. Yes, I'm frustrated, and with my partner most of all. With an irritated snort I fling my hand across the surface of the desk, sending the multitude of paper balls flying through the air to ricochet from walls and furniture. Now they're all over the floor, and I know that at some point I'll have to pick them all up again. In life you can lash out as much as you want, but sometime you always have to face the consequences, and it was this thought that kept me from shouting at Mac as he deliberately cut off all the questions he didn't want to have to hear or answer.

"Uh, Stella?"

Lindsay's hovering by the door.

I look up tiredly. "Yeah? Come in." My voice is very flat.

"Bad time?" she asks, looking around as she steps inside.

"No, no, don't worry." I breathe in, out, sitting up straight and pushing Mac to the back of my mind for the moment, and focusing on Lindsay. "Have we got something?"

"Actually, yes. A witness from the dump site."

"Really?" I ask excitedly.

"Yes. This guy took a walk on the other side of the river during his lunch break, saw a car drive up, someone pull something large from the trunk and drive off leaving it there. He thought it was just a fly-tipper until he was driving home past the spot this evening and saw the police notices."

"Sounds promising. Did he describe the car?"

"It was black, but he can't say much more than that about it. Not a 4x4 or anything like that, just an ordinary car. Flack also asked him about whoever did the dumping, but he was too far away, no go on that."

"What time was it?"

"About quarter to one. Again, he's not entirely sure."

I sigh, my brief excitement fast dissipating. "Well, it's a start, at least. Looks like you've been proven right with your case file theory, by the way."

She smiles briefly. "Yeah. Do you need a hand clearing up?" She gestures at my floor.

"Thanks." Any other time I'd have refused help, but right now I haven't got the energy and I'm glad of the company. We both get down on hands and knees and start picking up paper. Apparently I knocked my pot of pens over too without noticing.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" she asks me.

"No. God, I wish I did. Whoever this guy is, he's smart. He's obviously trying to send a message, but I'm not even sure whether it's just for Mac or directed to all of us."

"What does Mac think?" she asks cautiously. I shoot a glare in the direction of the door.

"Whatever Mac thinks, he doesn't seem to be in the mood to share it. Every time I tried asking him anything just now, he cut me dead." We've finished our clearing now, but we stay sitting on the floor, Lindsay leaning against the wall and me against the filing cabinet.

"Hawkes said he seems worried. You know, when there's something at the back of his mind, but he won't talk about it."

"Well, no surprise there." I have never known Mac to share what's worrying him, he just lets it prey on him, a black crow perched on his shoulder. Until it's worn him down so much that he has absolutely no choice because when he gets to that point I won't stop until I've wormed it out of him. Or unless he actually needs someone's help, but that's subjective. For Mac, that's a last resort.

"How're_you_ doing, Stella?" Lindsay asks me softly.

I consider telling her _I'm fine, everything's fine_, but I catch myself, remembering the reason why we're sitting here like this. "I'm worried," I say. "Scared. I have no idea what's going to happen next, but I have a strong feeling that this guy's only just getting started. And I keep thinking that it was so easy for him to slip a drug into Mac's drink, and what if it had been a poison? Or if he tries something like that again?"

We both fall silent. There's really no answer to a question like that. I don't mention to her the anger that I'm also feeling, selfish anger coming from Mac's unacknowledgement of how terrified I was about him. I'll keep that to myself.

My office appears to have become the world's meeting place, I think ruefully, as Danny puts his head around the door and sees the two of us. "Mothers' meeting?"

We scramble to our feet. "Discussing the case," I tell him firmly. I glance pointedly at Lindsay, and she gives me a slight nod to say that she won't be discussing the details of our conversation.

"Don't seem to me like there's a whole lot of case _to_ discuss," he points out. "Especially sitting on the floor."

"Belt it, Messer," Lindsay says. "You have anything useful?"

"I'm just the message runner. Mac told me to tell Stella here that he's gone home."

"Well, that's something at least," I say, although part of me does wish he was still in his office, where I'd be able to corner him. "Anything else?"

"Nope, just swung by to offer Montana a ride home."

"Have fun," I say, and Lindsay blushes slightly. I laugh. "Subtle."

"Yeah, well. Night, Stell. When's your shift end?"

"Couple of hours. Night, Danny. Night, Lindsay."

They leave together, and I'm left alone here with my thoughts, reflected in the dark sky through the un-curtained window.

* * *

**A/N: Yes, I did screw up balls of paper to check what size they came to. No, I didn't actually eat them.**

**Since it's my school's half term, I'm going away on holiday for a few days, with no internet, so I won't be able to upload the next chapter until Monday, or reply to reviews until then too. Please don't let that stop you reviewing, though:P And, as always, thank you to everyone who's left reviews so far. You make me very happy! **


	8. Chapter 8

Beeep. Beeep. Beeep.

I sit up in bed and fumble my hand along the wall for the light switch. Scrunching up my eyes against the sudden brightness, I reach for my pager. I barely have time to read the message when my cell phone rings.

"Bonasera."

"It's Flack. You get my page?"

"Just now." I yawn. "Not my night for call-out. Has Danny already got a scene?"

"No, I called you on purpose."

"This had better be good, Don. It's half three in the morning and not my call-out, as I said."

"Trust me. You're the primary on Mac's case." His tone is serious.

"What – has something happened?" I ask in sudden horror. Mac.

"Nah, nothing like that," he says hurriedly. "But I've got a scene here. I think it might be linked."

"Ok, I'll be right there. Where's the scene?"

He gives me the address. I hang up.

- - - - -

The roses are red. _Red as blood_, I think, and that's the literal truth. The redness pools in the folds between the petals, slides slowly down the stem in globules which hang poised to fall from the points of the thorns. It's hard to tell where the redness of the petals ends and the redness of the blood begins. The bouquet is tied with a red silk ribbon.

As I watch, another drop of blood breaks free and falls down through the air, to be absorbed by the fabric beneath which used to be white, but is now as red as the roses. "Whose blood is it?" I ask.

"Well, not from our bride here," Flack replies. "No other ideas yet."

The bride seems unaffected by the attention she's receiving. Her plastic features stare into the distance as the bunch of roses she holds continues to ruin her beautiful dress. Her maids of honour on either side of her in the shop window are similarly unconcerned.

"So what makes you think this is connected? It could just be simple vandalism, some sort of threat to the shopkeeper. The blood might not even be human."

"Blood's already been tested, and it's human. Anyway, you think I'd dare call you in the middle of the night if this wasn't serious?"

"Just tell me why you're so sure this is the same guy here."

"Coming to that. Follow me." He leads the way out of the window display. I follow him down the main aisle to the back of the shop, towards a tall blonde man who's talking animatedly to the uniformed officer with him. Mac's there too, listening. I catch his eye and he excuses himself and joins us a little way away.

"Aren't you on the body in the park?" I ask, a little sharply.

"Not any more, I've transferred Danny to it instead."

"He know that yet?"

"He will tomorrow. He gets a full night's sleep, so he can be grateful."

I'm not entirely sure that Danny'll be getting a full night's sleep, and judging by Flack's wink at me, he isn't either. "You know what I think of you."

"As always, Stella. I haven't started processing yet, I was waiting for you."

"I'll go see if Mr Harris over there's finished making his official statement yet," Flack says, and we head in opposite directions.

"Flack says the blood on the roses has already been tested?"

"Yes, I did that when I got here. Nothing else has been touched yet. According to the shopkeeper, the roses were a part of the display, but the blood obviously wasn't."

I rest my kit on the floor and open it, lifting out my camera. Mac moves out of the way as I take a few wide angle shots. The shop door's nearby and he moves over to that and bends to examine it. "Is that how the perp got in?"

"Yes. There's another door at the back, one that's used for deliveries, but it's chained and padlocked from the inside, so this is the only way in."

"Any sign of forced entry?"

"No. The lock's not broken at all." He pulls the door inwards, setting the bell jingling, and examines the other side. "But it's not a very complicated lock. It could be picked quite easily. Either that or he had a copy of the original key."

I take some close-up pictures of the flowers, and then the stems, turning my back on him. "Neither of you has explained to me yet just why it is you're so certain this is the guy we're after who's done this."

Mac pulls a brush and a bottle of coloured powder from his kit and begins dusting the door. "Mr Harris, the shopkeeper, got a call at home, maybe an hour ago. Flack'll give you the details in a bit, but the gist of it was that someone had been murdered in his shop. Harris didn't want to call the police out on a hoax – apparently that's happened before – so he came down here to have a look and sees the window display. Then he called 911, and helpfully he waited on the sidewalk until NYPD got here. Flack called me."

"You haven't actually answered my question," I point out. He's not improving my temper. "What did the guy say on the phone that makes you so sure this is connected?"

Mac looks up at me. "He said, 'Give my regards to Mac and Stella, and thank them for the loan of those papers.' Harris didn't know what it meant, but he passed it on to the officer who arrived."

"Oh." I pause to let this sink in, although I was suspecting something of the sort. _Mac and Stella_. So it is personal then. I don't ask Mac any of the things I want to, remembering last time I tried that. "Can you give me a hand here?"

I gently lift the roses from the bride's folded hands, and place them in the evidence bag which Mac holds open for me. As I hold a measuring square against the drip pattern on her dress, he says quietly, "I'm sorry."

"What for?" I ask, knowing perfectly well, or hoping that I do, but needing to hear it from him anyway.

"For earlier. Well, yesterday now." He's stumbling slightly, as if he's nervous of what my reaction will be. "I was avoiding you, and I wouldn't let you ask me anything. I'm sorry."

I consider it. It's an easy choice. I can never be angry with Mac for very long. "Forgiven. But you know you can always talk to me, ok, so do it more often please?"

"I know. Thank you. For being such a good friend. And for taking me home, before, and letting me take your bed. I should have said before. I don't know why I didn't." He puts his hand gently on my arm and lets it rest there. "Just… thank you."

I smile, a proper smile this time. "We're partners, Mac. We take care of each other. We always will."

"You said that to me before. In similar circumstances."

"I'll say it again if I have to, although I hope I don't. It's true." We break apart and he hands me the bag of roses for me to label, seeing that I'm finished with photographing for the time being. As he continues printing the door I begin to undo the back of the wedding dress. "Have you got anything there?" I ask.

"No prints at all. The door's been wiped clean on both sides."

"He stood on the street long enough to polish down the door?" I say incredulously. "Anyone could have seen him. Just like when he dumped the body by the river. This guy's arrogant."

"I agree. But he's also very clever, and very dangerous."

"Should you maybe think about getting protection?" I ask cautiously.

"No, I don't think so. If he's after me he's had plenty of opportunity already, and judging by what he's managed to do so far, I don't think a uniform sitting outside my apartment block would be any help whatsoever."

_Well_, I think, as I carefully fold the dress into another paper evidence bag, _at least I tried_. I seal it with tape and label it with the black marker pen.

"Stell?" I look up and Mac seems to have disappeared. I turn and can see him beckoning me from the other side of the window. I join him on the sidewalk. It isn't long until sunrise now.

"Have you found something?"

"Yeah. I think it's a trail, look." My gaze follows his pointing finger and I see a red petal lying on the concrete slab a few feet away. There's another splash of colour about ten yards beyond that.

"I'm guessing you don't think it's a coincidence?"

For answer he crouches down and lifts the first petal partially with the tip of his gloved finger and thumb. It leaves a faded imprint of itself behind, red against the grey. "Grab a stack of evidence markers. Let's see where this trail leads."

* * *

**A/N: Well, here you are, sorry for the wait. The next chapter'll be up in a couple of days as usual. Blue x**


	9. Chapter 9

"Doesn't this feel a bit… convenient to you?" I ask as I find the items he requested. "I mean, a trail of bloody rose petals doesn't seem too accidental."

"Someone wants us follow the breadcrumbs," he replies. "I think we should oblige them, find out what's at the end."

"As long as it's not the gingerbread house with the wicked witch," I say. I hand him the pile of evidence markers and he places the first one next to the first petal as I snap a photo. He's moved on to the next already, and as I catch up to him he's looking round the corner at the third. With no one else around, it's easy to see our trail in the cold grey light of early morning, especially as Mac's using his flashlight to flood the sidewalk with a bright beam. I follow him, taking the photos as I go. From a little way ahead he waves me closer, urgently.

"Over here, Gretel," he calls. I look at where he's placed marker number eight. There are two blood drops next to this petal. "What are you thinking?"

"He planned this well in advance," I say as I record and we move on. "He probably had a key, or at least is very good at picking locks. He knew exactly what he would find, the roses, and brought his own petals to match."

"What makes you say that?" Mac asks. He'll already know the answer but we're used to working this way, talking out our shared ideas with each other.

"The roses at the shop had blood poured or dripped over them, so they were unevenly coated. These petals we're following are completely coated, and there's these extra blood drops here. I'm thinking he had these petals floating in a container, and when he took this one out it took some extra drops with it."

"I agree."

We follow the convoluted path mapped out for us, walking in a comfortable silence. Even though whatever game this man is playing seems to be escalating, I find I'm not as worried as I was only a short time before. Mac's apologised, and we're able to talk properly to each other again, and this seems to make everything much less dark. Instead of feeling mocked by it, I'm hopeful that this trail will lead us to some vital clue. It's certainly long enough to feel important. Every time there's a turning in the street we seem to take it. I've lost count of how many blocks we've walked, but we're at petal number 34 when my phone rings.

"Bonasera."

"Stella? Where the hell are you?"

"Following a lead." Mac looks at me questioningly, and I mouth _Flack_. He nods.

"So I gather," Flack continues. "Without tellin' me? I finish with Harris, and you two are gone off somewhere, just leaving a load of your yellow card things? Where are you now?"

"Uh, I'm not exactly sure. No road signs just here."

"Alright, I'm coming after you. You realise that if you get ambushed I'll probably be taking the fall?"

"Cheerful. I hear you though, we'll wait."

"You'd better. You need to be more careful." He cuts the connection.

"What was that about?" Mac asks.

"Flack. He wants us to wait here until he arrives with backup."

"Alright."

I must have looked disbelieving, because he laughed. "Promise."

A couple of minutes go by, during which Mac crouches by the 34th petal and examines it closely, while I look again through the photos stored on the camera's card. I know that we should be waiting for Flack, but I'm impatient. I walk to the edge of the corner and look down the street. "Mac. You need to see this."

The subway entrance ahead doesn't look as if it gets much use. There's litter around the entrance, degrading cardboard coffee cups, bright foil chocolate wrappers. And a perfectly intact red rose, flower-head in full bloom, lying on the centre of the top step down. We walk to it, mark it, photograph it.

I see a metal sign lying on its back, and I turn it over. STATION CLOSED, it reads. The lights are on in the stairwell. It looks as if someone's not taken any notice of the sign.

Mac draws his weapon. "Oh no," I say. "We're waiting."

"You want to let this guy get away from us?" he asks.

I hesitate for a second, but there's still no sign of Flack. This is a stupid idea. But there are two of us. "Ok. Let's do this."

Mac pushes the evidence markers into his pocket, and I hang the camera strap around my neck and right shoulder, so that it hangs on my left side. I draw my Glock and hold it ready. He touches my hand for a second, and meets my eyes. "Ready?"

"Ready."

We don't speak as we descend the stairs. The harsh yellow strip lights reflect off the dingy concrete walls. Our footsteps echo, however quietly we try to walk. Broken glass bottles lie in corners coated with dust, and the stench of stale urine hangs in the air.

We reach the bottom of the stairs. The line here must run very deep underground, because there's about fifteen metres of level tunnel and then more steps downwards. I glance at my watch. Quarter past five. Usually by now the daily commute would be just beginning, but this silent station is deserted. The ticket kiosk is set into one of the walls here, but a metal grille is pulled across it and padlocked shut.

Mac touches my arm to catch my attention, and points. I nod to show him I've seen. Next to the top of the descending flight of stairs is a door marked very clearly with KEEP OUT. It's standing open, opening into an unknown, unlit tunnel. Another rose lies on the threshold.

Guns ready, we advance towards the doorway. This is when I realise very clearly what a nightmare situation we've just walked into. We can see nothing of whatever's inside, but anyone inside has a clear line of sight to us. I risk a glance at Mac and see from the tautness of his face that he's thinking the same. And God only knows what we're going to do now. If we continue advancing, well, anyone inside can just pick us both off at their pleasure. We try to turn back, same result, except that we won't even see it coming. We slow to a halt.

"NYPD. Come out with your hands up," Mac calls. His voice bounces off the concrete walls and ceiling. There is no response.

Or rather, there is. The lights, suddenly and completely, are gone. My heart jumps in my chest. I swing my head round, eyes stretched wide open for any light, any at all. There's none. I can hear footsteps, running feet somewhere, and although I've lost most of my sense of direction they seem to be directly ahead. Echoes ricochet from the walls, slamming everywhere, a black chaos.

I think, _Light,_ and grab the camera with my left hand and click. Flash. Someone is silhouetted in a white magnesium flare against a black background. Click. Flash. This time his white face is right next to my own, centimetres from the camera lens. A shocked scream, a short sharp scream, and I realise that it was my voice. A movement of the air currents in front of me, and my Glock knocked from my hand. The clatter it makes on the hard ground. Something heavy smashes into my jaw, something cold catching me across my face. Unbalanced, I fall backwards, and the ground behind me isn't there, and I fall, and hit the sharp edge of a step, and keep falling, rolling down headlong, forearms clenched tight around my head. Shouting, some of it mine. Some of it not. The hard edge of each step I hit slamming into my stomach, my back, my legs, my chest. The camera strap pulled tight around my throat as the camera lands beneath me.

A gunshot.

A gunshot somewhere above. I collide with a vertical surface, a wall, and stop. I lie still. I try to shout his name, but there's no air in my lungs and I can't seem to suck any in. I don't know what I'm hearing anymore. Blackness. My thoughts are choked with thick soot, and it's so hard to hang onto any ideas, other than the most important ones which play themselves on a loop. I think,_Gunshot._ I think, _Mac._ I think, _We should have waited._

* * *

**A/N: Two cliffhangers in a row. I'm mean. I'd like to know what you think about the last bit. As it's first person present tense I felt that writing it as anything other than the complete chaos wouldn't work, but if you disagree please tell me!**

** Also, I have never been to New York, so the description is probably inaccurate. I based it on the subway (underpass) at Great Malvern railway station. **_  
_


	10. Chapter 10

Darkness.

I think my eyes are open. Either way, it makes no difference.

Something is choking me. I reach up and find the leather strap of the camera pulled tight around my neck. I tug it loose, and use my hands against the floor to push myself up to my knees. My body aches. I take a few deep breathes but don't dare shout in case the man we followed is still there in the darkness, waiting.

There was a gunshot. Mac.

I stand, awkwardly, hand braced against the wall. I unhook the camera from where it's still slung across my torso, and wrap the strap several times around my wrist. It rattles slightly when I move it and I very much doubt that it'll ever be able to take pictures again, but at least it's heavy enough to function as some sort of weapon.

I follow the line of the wall. The concrete is cold and damp beneath my hand. I place my feet softly, feeling for the first step up. When I find it I pause and strain my eyes to try and see something, anything, but I can't even see my hand when I hold it in front of my face. I climb silently on the balls of my feet, muscles protesting. I want to sit down, rest, but if Mac's injured I've got to get to him. He'll be alright, I try to tell myself. Anything else is unthinkable.

This seems to be the longest flight of steps I've ever had to climb. In the absolute blackness of jet, trying to make no noise, straining my ears for any sounds. Leaning heavily against the wall. Each step is an effort, and each footfall sounds unbearably loud. I reach the top and step forward, feeling immediately disorientated by the loss of my guiding wall.

I take a step forwards. And another. I try to find the place where I last saw Mac, knowing perfectly well that he's probably moved since then. I'm walking bent forwards, arm reached out and partially bent back, feeling the need to shield myself.

There's someone there. I don't know exactly how I know this, but I'm suddenly sure that there's someone right in front of me. I freeze. I feel my muscles tense. I hold my breath.

In that moment there's a sudden gust of movement which hits me a second before the man who attacks me. He grabs me, forces me around to face away from him, one of his hands holding my wrists together in a vice grip. His other arm is pressed against my trachea and I struggle to breathe. I try to swing the camera around, fighting back, but my arm is twisted painfully upwards and I can't move it enough to gain the momentum. I kick backwards, twisting our legs together so that we both go down to the floor and I use the moment when we hit the concrete to try and jerk free. I pull my left arm out of his grip, the arm without the camera, and jab with my elbow into where I think my attacker's stomach might be. He throws himself over my back, pinning me to the floor. He presses my head downwards with the palm of one hand, presumably to prevent me moving while he secures my arms again, but the follow-up never happens. He freezes.

"Stella?"

I gasp for breath.

"Mac? Mac, is that you?"

He rolls off me. "I thought – I thought you were –"

"I know. I know. I thought that too."

"Are you hurt?" he asks urgently.

"No, I'm fine. Are you?"

"I'm not hurt. I thought he shot you. I heard a shot."

"It wasn't you shooting then?"

"No, I couldn't. I didn't know where you were. I might have hit you." Our voices are fast, jerky, near panic.

"I didn't have a chance. He knocked my piece right out of my hand." I pause. "Flack's going to kill us."

"He'll be right to. Stell, I shouldn't have got you into this. I'm so sorry."

"It was my choice, Mac. Don't beat yourself up."

A silence of disagreement. "We need to get out of here," he says.

"All well and good," I say. "Which way?"

Since I brought us crashing to the floor I have no idea which way I'm facing. Mac probably doesn't either.

"We need to find a wall," he says. "We'd better hold hands, or we'll lose each other."

"Where are you?"

"Here. Stay still."

I can hear him moving, and after a few seconds his fingertips brush against my face. I catch his hand. I feel the change in his height as he stands up, and I follow his lead. I'm careful to hold my breath as I struggle to my feet again. I don't want him knowing that I'm hurt. "Which way?" I ask.

"I've no idea. Have you got anything to throw?"

"Good idea. Hang on a second." The piece of plastic I throw straight ahead of me is in the air for a long time, before we hear it hit the floor. "I guess that's the way out. Probably."

"What did you throw?"

"Part of the camera. It was loose."

He tightens his grip on me. "Stella, what happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"Those cameras don't break easily. What happened to you?"

"I fell on it. We'll talk about it when we get out of here, ok? I'm fine."

"Ok," he says, in a tone leaving me in no doubt I haven't heard the last of this. He doesn't believe me. With a flash of guilt I realise that I'm doing exactly what he was yesterday, but I push the feeling down. At the moment there's no time for one of us to be hurt.

We slowly walk forwards together, at arms' length from each other's clasped hand. My free hand is also outstretched, hoping to find a wall to guide us. We place each foot carefully, conscious of the steps downwards if we turn in circles without noticing, and also of the rough floor.

Although I don't mention it to Mac, I'm afraid. I'm afraid that the man is still nearby in the dark, standing silent. Listening. Waiting. I want to find a wall and curl into a ball, not walk around and betray our positions. That isn't really an option though. If he's here, he'll know perfectly well where we are. He's got all the time in the world to make his move.

"What happened to your torch?" I think to ask.

"The same as happened to your piece."

"Oh."

I wonder if the walls are still in the same place. They seem to be moving away from us. I've no idea how long we've been down here for.

Mac suddenly trips and falls. Unprepared, I'm pulled down with him. He grunts as part of my weight lands on his leg. "Are you ok?" I ask, after a second to catch my own breath at the renewed jolt of pain.

"Yeah. Stood on something that moved." I hear him scrabbling on the floor. "Here." He feels for my hands and presses my Glock into them.

I manage a shaky laugh. "Thanks. Very useful."

Whatever Mac was about to say is cut off, because we hear footsteps, fast steps, seemingly making no attempt to disguise themselves. "Stella. Get behind me," he whispers.

"No."

I can hear him get into a crouched position, partly between me and whoever is coming down the stairs. I think they're nearly here. Just the corner to turn and the last steps down. There's a dim glow. I'm guessing someone's hand is covering a torch. Funny how rationally my mind is working.

A beam of intense light strikes me full in the face and I instinctively cover my eyes. I feel Mac stand upright, hand on my shoulder to push him up and keep me on the ground. I know that his gun is already drawn. "Don't move!" he shouts, despite the fact that I know he'll be as blinded as me. I feel like a rabbit in front of a car, frozen.

"NYPD! Don't shoot!" yells a familiar voice.

"Don, drop the light!" Mac yells back.

The torch beam leaves my face and I hear Flack's feet as he races down the stairs. Two other people reveal their presence as they switch on their torches, shine them around the large empty space. "Jesus," Flack says as he reaches us. "Jesus. What the hell were you two thinking?"

There isn't any kind of good answer to that, so neither of us know what to reply. I'm still held bent low by Mac's hand on my shoulder, a smaller target, but now he removes his hand and uses it to pull me to my feet. Flack keeps his torch beam away from me, and I know why, and I'm silently grateful. "C'mon," he says. "Let's get you both out of here. Can't do anything before we get the lights on." The tone of his voice leaves me in no doubt that we're not going to hear the last of this for a very long time indeed.

* * *

**A/N: Wow! I'm truly amazed at the volume and wonderfullness of the reviews I've been getting, so thank you all!**


	11. Chapter 11

It's a shock to find the sun up and the sky blue. To me it feels like we've been in the dark long enough that it should be night up here as well. Our red petals are still bright against the grey sidewalk, and look unreal to me now. Flack leads us away from the subway entrance, and stops.

"Jesus," he says again. "Christ, Stell. I told you to wait for me." He grabs my shoulder and turns me to face him. He stares at me.

"What?" I ask, although I know.

"You're bleeding."

I touch my fingers to where earlier I felt a gash open up above my eyebrow, and they come away red and sticky. "It's ok, it's not much."

"You wouldn't know, you can't see it. Just what the hell happened in there?" he asks.

Mac's looking horrified, now that he can see me properly in the sunlight. "Your wrists…"

There are clear reddish hand marks on my left wrist where he'd held them in a pincer grip. My right wrist is still covered by the many-times-wrapped-around camera strap, and I unwind it. It's pulled much tighter than I'd realised, as the circling bruise bears testament. The camera itself is indeed shattered beyond repair. I suddenly remember why I'm still carrying it.

"The card. We need to get the card out. I took two pictures down there."

"That was the flash of light?" Mac asks.

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure I caught him."

"Good thinking, Stell. Even if he hasn't left us any evidence again, at least we might get to know what he looks like now."

I try to pry open the crushed card slot, wincing as I bend my sore wrists. Flack takes it from me. "Get it done at the lab." He takes my left arm and gently turns it over, studying the bruise pattern. "Tell me what happened. Did the guy grab you?"

"Uh – no. Mac did."

"What?!"

"I didn't know –" Mac begins, but is distracted by the arrival of another squad car and the black 4x4 which Danny and Lindsay jump out of. Lindsay sees me and puts her hand to her mouth. "God. What happened to you?"

I sigh. "Have you got a mirror?" I ask. I'm getting tired of being stared at without knowing exactly what I look like. Lindsay rummages in her bag on the front seat and hands me a make-up mirror. I hold it in front of me and see blood smeared across part of my face from the gash on my right brow, and a faintly purple bruise is creeping up my left cheek-bone.

Flack waves to Angell, who leaves the uniforms she arrived with, and joins our group. "Take over, wouldcha? I'm giving Stella a ride to the hospital."

"I'm fine," I say.

"You need stitches. And you're obviously hurt, I can tell from how you were walking. Get in my car."

"Aren't you going to fill me in?" Angell asks him.

"No, because I haven't the faintest idea what's going on. Mac's going to tell you, and then he's going to come to the hospital and tell me. We'll be at Angel of Mercy. Stella, get in my car. Now. Mac, you start talking."

No arguments. I get in the car. So does Flack. He starts the engine and pulls away from the kerb, jaw clenched. Neither of us says anything.

- - - - -

I'm leaning back on a bed in a hospital room, fully clothed, minus my shoes. My head hurts despite the painkillers I was given a while ago, and I'm bored. There's a murmur of voices outside, but too quiet for me to make out most of the words.

I close my eyes again and rub the closed lids with my hands, careful to avoid the line of stitches. I've been stuck in the hospital for well over an hour now. Part of it was having the stitches, being x-rayed to check for cracked ribs, and there's a support on my wrist which itches irritatingly. For most of the time though, I've just been in this room. Because of the head injury they want to keep me under observation for 'a couple of hours'. It's hard to believe that it's still not even nine in the morning, so much has happened.

Flack didn't say much to me, but he found a doctor to check me over almost immediately. I know that he's angry, and I can't blame him. The more I think over what happened, what almost happened, the more I wonder what the hell I was thinking, allowing the two of us to walk into that subway. If I'd refused to go in, Mac wouldn't have gone on his own, but since the Clay Dobson fiasco I doubt Flack believed me when I told him that. When Mac showed up I knew straight away that he was in trouble, from the dark look on Flack's face. Mac's giving his statement in the hall right now. I presume at some point I'll have to make one too, but I really don't envy Mac for going first.

The voices outside rise rapidly in both volume and tone. I've been expecting this for a while. If I'm honest, I'm only surprised that Don managed to keep his temper for this long, but I haven't seen them this angry with each other for a very long time.

"Christ's sake, Mac! You went in there without any backup at all!"

"So where were you? You took your time!"

"Yes, because I had a scene to secure. A scene that you and Stella decided to just walk away from without any warning. I told you to wait!"

"We had a lead. We didn't know how far ahead of us he was. We couldn't let him just get away. There were two of us, it's not like either of us went in alone!"

"You could've both got killed! He fired a weapon in the dark, possibly aimed at you. Stella was thrown down the stairs and could've broken her neck. Don't you dare try and tell me you made the right decision!"

"He turned out the lights, Don! If we'd had more people, there'd just have been more confusion. It was an unavoidable situation!"

"That's bullshit Mac. You know it! You walked into a clear ambush without letting anyone else know what you were doing or where you were, without backup, without even flak vests. If that guy had wanted to kill you, you'd both be dead right now. Did you think of that?"

"He obviously didn't want us dead."

"This time." Their voices are falling back towards normal levels, for which I'm highly glad. I think that they're probably right outside the door at this moment. "Mac, all I'm saying is that you both need to be a helluva lot more careful. Do you think I enjoy putting a message out through dispatch that the two of you are MIA, possibly in a situation with a known hostile? Because I sure as hell don't."

There's silence. "I know," Mac says very quietly.

"Do you? Really?"

"Yes. I shouldn't have put you in that position. I'm sorry."

"Good. Don't you _ever_ do something like that again."

"I think we've established that," Mac says, and I find myself smile half-guiltily for a second at his dry tone. "Now are you finally going to tell me how Stella's doing?"

"Stella's right here, and she can hear everything you're saying," I call.

The door opens. "Oh," says Flack.

"Don't worry about it though. I'm sure the whole _hospital_ could hear you two just then."

Mac steps forwards and I can see fear in his eyes as he looks at me. I recognise it. I recognise it from two nights ago when it was all I could think of, and seeing it in Mac scares me, almost more than I was in the subway. I don't want him to have to feel it for me. The fear of losing someone close to you. "Stella, I'm so sorry…"

"It isn't your fault," I say, and I mean it. I deserve just as much blame, although I don't seem to be getting it. Flack snorts derisively. "Ok, maybe your fault a bit. But I chose to go down there with you. Don't blame yourself for what happened."

"Don't listen to her," Flack says. "This is why I wouldn't let you see her before, I knew she'd come out with this crap."

I catch Mac's eye and we both grin, slightly sheepishly.

The doctor enters the room. I've already forgotten his name. In this career we're in hospitals much more often than we'd like, see too many doctors in identical white coats. "How are you feeling, Detective?"

"I'm fine," I say. "Am I allowed to leave now?"

"Yes, you're ready to be discharged. Here." He offers me a sheaf of forms on a clipboard, which I sign and hand back before anyone can change their minds. "Thank you."

He leaves the room and I swing my legs off the bed, pushing my feet into my shoes. "Can I get a ride off one of you?" I ask.

"I'm giving Mac a ride too, he took a cab here. I'll swing past your apartment on the way," Flack says.

"Don't worry, I've got a change of clothes in my locker."

"I guess you don't want to take the day then?"

"No, I don't."

* * *

**A/N: I know I was bad at replying to recent reviews, I've been hectically busy over the last couple of days. Here's a general thank you! I do very much appreciate them! And I hope you liked this chapter. Blue x  
**


	12. Chapter 12

I was processed at the hospital by a nurse who swabbed my head wound, and Flack photographed it before it was stitched closed. Just doing my job, making sure that evidence is collected. Does it matter that I'm announcing to the world that once again that I've been marked as a victim, having to bear the unbearable worry of my friends? As I undress in a shower cubicle I fold my clothes into evidence bags which I seal. I step into the pounding jet of scorching hot water and close my eyes, leaning against the tiled wall, letting the blood and the dust and the dirt wash off me.

I'm running everything that's happened through my mind, trying to make sense of it. Everything is connected, Mac says, but the only connection I can find is the man whose face could be trapped in the camera which Danny and Lindsay will be bringing back to the lab soon with the rest of the evidence they find. His actions seem to make no sense. Drugging Mac. The theft of an unremarkable file. The execution of a nameless man forced to swallow those same sheets of paper. The roses, covered with blood of as-yet-unknown origin. The ambush in the darkness. There's no pattern here that I can follow, nothing which can tell me who he is and what he wants. Why he's targeting us.

Eventually I have to give up, despite how much I hate to. I feel that I'm being mocked by a man standing in the shadows. Watching us. Laughing at our futile, pathetic efforts to find him. I turn the water off, dress in my spare set of clothes and head upstairs, carrying the evidence bags with me.

"There you are," Mac greets me as I push my way through his office door. "I thought you must have drowned."

I laugh slightly, pulling myself back to the here and now. "Not quite. But I've been thinking it all through, Mac, and I still can't make sense of what's going on. Everything that's happened seems so… random when put together. As if he's throwing a die to choose what to do next."

He sighs. "I know. And we still don't know whose blood was on the roses, since we've found no body yet. I don't suppose it could be from your John Doe?"

"Sorry Mac, not a chance."

"Well, the samples we took are being analysed at the moment. Flack had one of the officers from the scene at the shop bring our evidence here. We should have results on it in a couple of hours."

"Did you get any prints from the door in the end?"

"No, nothing. It'd been completely wiped down. We might have better luck with the dress or the bunch of roses though. Hawkes took them to process."

"What about the petal trail?"

"Danny and Lindsay are handling that, along with the subway itself. I talked to Danny a few minutes ago; he says they should be back here well within the hour."

"Did they find anything?" I ask hopefully.

"We don't know yet if there's anything relevant. Angell took a couple of uniforms through the door that was open; it's where the lighting controls were. It also led onto a tunnel down to the tracks, so I'm assuming after he left us he walked along the line and exited from the next station. I called the station managers in both directions. No one remembers seeing anyone coming from the tracks onto the platform, but they both sent up their CCTV recordings of the platform from this morning, and Adam's going through the tapes right now."

"Is there a chance he might have waited for us to pull the tapes _before_ he left the tracks?"

"No. Luckily for us there's a problem with people getting down to the line from the station. There was fencing but some public-spirited person removed it, presumably in the service of freedom to cause a nuisance and possibly an accident. Because of that a couple of subway workers walk along the tracks between the two working stations at six each morning to turf out junkies and homeless people who've decided to sleep there before the trains start running at high frequency. I spoke to the men who took the patrol today, and they told me he was definitely gone by then, and that there's no other way of getting to the surface. Chances are we'll have him on the videos."

"Ok, I'll go with the optimism for a bit. I'll go drop these in the trace labs, maybe swap with Hawkes since I can't process them myself."

"I'll come with you."

As we walk past, Danny leaves the elevator carrying a closed box, Flack behind him, and nearly collides with us. "Whoh. Hey Mac, Stell."

"You left Lindsay behind?" I ask.

"Nah, she's parking the car."

"Quite the gentleman, Messer," Flack says.

"Yeah, yeah, she offered. You're just jealous."

The elevator dings again and Lindsay joins us with another box of evidence bags. "Hi. You ok, Stella?"

"I think I'll stick a sign to my forehead saying, 'Yes, I'm fine,' if anyone else asks me that," I say. Lindsay laughs. "Be careful," I warn her. "I'm not joking here. Everyone's been asking me that all day." Actually, a sign might be too subtle, thinking about it. I wish now that I'd been slightly more forgiving to Mac. Having people worrying about me is a horrible feeling.

We head down the hallway to an empty layout room, and Danny tips the contents of his neatly stacked box of evidence packets out across the table with rather too much enthusiasm. I pick up the three envelopes which slide to the floor. "Whatcha got?"

"A loada junk, mostly," he admits. "We couldn't tell which stuff was evidence and which wasn't, so we had to bag pretty much anything that looked like it might be."

"You got my camera in that pile?"

"Here." Lindsay pulls it from her box. "I put it in the plastic bag so the bits of it wouldn't get lost, I don't think it's technically evidence. Don't you want us to process it with the rest of the stuff?"

"Nah, I'll take it. Most of the photos on it are of my scene. Well, Hawkes's now, I suppose."

"Sure."

"You going to get the card out of that?" Flack asks.

"Not in here, I think it'll be better to completely disassemble this thing rather than risk breaking the card pulling it out."

"Ok, I'll come and watch."

"Sure. You coming too, Mac?"

"No, I think I'll go and help Hawkes with the evidence from the shop."

"I'll bring you the photos from that scene when I manage to extract them," I tell him. I pause. "If."

"I have complete confidence that you can dismantle _anything_ extremely effectively," Mac says. "I'll see you in a bit."

* * *

**A/N: Yeah, I know not much happened in this chapter. Think of it as the deep breath before I send in the finale (and the couple of chapters leading up to it). And I'm so glad that you all seem to have been enjoying this so far, it really makes it worth writing! Blue x**


	13. Chapter 13

Flack watches as I pick the camera apart on the table. I use a delicate screwdriver to unscrew each section, and I pick the pieces of shattered plastic out using a pair of forceps. I quickly take the support off my wrist, preferring the mild pain when I bend it to the frustration of having movement prevented. I'm well aware that Flack's looking rather impatient, but I take my time, deconstructing the shattered camera until at last I reach the card slot and tease out the small memory card, holding it up triumphantly.

He grins. "Finally. Let's see how good you are at taking pictures in the dark."

"Don't hold out too much hope," I warn him. "Anyway, we need the photos from the shop too. If they don't come out we're in trouble."

I slide it into the card-reader slot on the computer, and we hold our breath. There's a painful pause of about ten seconds, and then the picture folder opens on the screen. I scroll down through the thumbnails, reassuring myself that my crime scene photos have survived intact, and stop at the last two. I double-click, opening them to fill the screen, and flick between them. The second one is a bleached pure white face right in front of the lens, the reflected flash having completely obscured any features. I click back to the other one.

Flack and I look at each other, and I'm amazed at how well this picture has turned out. Granted, the man is at a diagonal, but he's dead on to the camera I aimed blindly. His shocked features are perfectly distinct in the harsh light.

"Gotcha," Flack says, very quietly.

"Do you know him?" I ask.

"No, but now we've got his face, I soon will."

I send all the images to the printer. "Still angry with us?" I ask as we wait.

He sighs. "Stell, I'm sorry I shouted. But look at it from my point of view. I had no idea what'd happened to you when I got to that subway station."

"You've had Mac's apology, here's mine. It was stupid of us."

"It's ok, I'm sure you've thought it over since then. Just saying, I never want to have to be in charge of a scene with one of your bodies. It was bad enough with Frankie, and with Aiden."

"I know." It's what we all dread, having to work on a case file containing the name of one of our friends or family. And all of us here consider each other as family.

He claps me on the shoulder. "C'mon. Let's get these pictures to Mac and the doc."

"I'm here," Mac says from the open door. "I came to see if you'd managed to get anything off the camera yet."

"Got his face," I tell him. I hand them to him. "Do you recognise him?" I ask.

He frowns. "He seems… familiar somehow. But I'm not sure why. I've certainly never interviewed him in connection with a case."

"So, we still have a guy with no name, and an unknown motive."

"At least we know what he looks like. We can run him through the database, see if we get any hits."

Flack's pager suddenly goes off. He reads it and sighs. "Well, much as I've enjoyed trying to keep you two alive, I'm off. If you get a name, let me know."

"Would you mind passing the photos from the bridal shop into Hawkes on your way?" I ask.

"Anything for the damsel-who-was-in-distress." I fold my arms. He laughs, picks up the sheaf of photos, and leaves.

Mac's still concentrated on the picture of our attacker, face frowning slightly. He looks up suddenly. "Why do you think he didn't grab the camera off you?"

I think back, trying to slow down what happened in my head. "I think he might have tried, when he lunged at me. He caught me in the face with something," – I gesture at the line of stitches on my forehead – "So if I'd been holding the camera up to take a photo he'd have knocked it out of my hands."

"Weren't you holding it, then?"

"No, I guess I wasn't." I pause and close my eyes, raising my hands to mimic my position when I took the last photo. "I was holding it like this… my Glock was in my right hand, so most of the weight of the camera was in my left. Stand there, will you?"

Mac stands directly in front of me. I gesture. "No, closer. Right there."

"He was this close?" There's only about a foot between us.

"Yes, that's about where he was when the camera flashed for the second time."

"You screamed, didn't you?"

I feel myself blush slightly. A trained police officer, in the force for years, and I screamed when a man crept up on me in the dark. What's more, it was in front of Mac. "Yes I did. Please don't tell anyone."

"I promise," he says, with only the merest hint of a smile playing around his mouth. He raises his hand so that it's very nearly touching me. "But look. If I move my hand, I can't help hitting the camera."

"Ah. No. What happened… it was reflexes. Left hand to support my right hand holding the gun. I let go of the camera, so it fell a second before his hand got there." I demonstrate. "Swing your hand round again."

He does so, and his hand stops at my two hands holding the imaginary gun. "So, I'm the attacker and I can tell that what I knocked out of your hands was the wrong shape to be the camera. I didn't hear anything other than the gun hit the ground, so I assume you're still holding the camera in your other hand, because it's pitch dark and I can't see it's on a strap. So I try again." He gently swings his arm again, and this time stops when his hand is gently touching my face. "And that was what knocked you backwards. It probably wasn't his plan to make you fall down the stairs." He lets his hand drop back to his side.

I think back. "I could hear shouting, as I was falling…"

"That was me. I heard him hit you, and you fall back, and I was shouting. He knocked into me as I was trying to turn the torch on, and I dropped it. Then the gunshot, and running footsteps. Then there was just silence until I heard you coming towards me, although of course I didn't realise it was you."

"Where was the shot aimed?"

"The bullet was lodged in the wall of the stairwell, between where we were both standing. It could have been aimed at either of us. I think, though, he knew he was very unlikely to hit us in the dark, and it was mainly to distract us while he got away."

"Oh." There doesn't seem to be anything to say. What I'm thinking is,_One of us should be dead._ His face is still so close to mine, and I can see a shadow behind his eyes. I wonder what I'd be able to do, what I'd be doing right now, if that bullet had hit him. Once, I told Mac I didn't think I'd be strong enough to go on living if I tested positive for HIV, but that would be nothing, nothing at all, compared to not having Mac here.

On impulse I grab his hand that gently touched my cheek a minute ago, and squeeze it tightly. I need the reassurance that he's still here, still warm and alive, and he responds by squeezing back. Perhaps he needs even more reassurance. Not even knowing what I'm going to say, I begin. "Mac…"

Hawkes pushes open the door and the two of us jump backwards and drop each other's hand as if we've been burned. Hawkes doesn't appear to have noticed, until he winks at me when Mac looks around him in embarrassment. He appears to be in a good mood.

"You have something?" I ask hopefully.

"Yes, I do. Get this. The guy was careful not to leave a single fingerprint, hair, anything. But he _sneezed_ on the roses, after he'd dripped the blood on them! I shone the black light on them to get a clearer look at the blood pattern, and the saliva pattern jumped right out. I sent a swab to DNA already."

"That's great," I say, and I'm understating. We have his face, we have his DNA. Now it's only a matter of time before we have him too. Mac lets out a breath it seems he's been holding for hours, and I know he's thinking the same as me.

Soon, this will all be over.

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**A/N: Thank you all again for your reviews! I know I say this every chapter, but I really am grateful for them. Do you think Stella's optimism is well-founded? ;) Blue x**


	14. Chapter 14

It was so simple, the solution. As they always are, really, once you've peeled back the layers of elaboration and trickery. The blood from the roses got a hit in CODIS, a man whose name was Stuart Acorn. He'd just been released a month ago after a five year stint in prison, for manslaughter. He knocked over a bride on her way to church, driving a stolen car, and killed her. I spend a couple of hours pulling up case files and newspaper articles, finding the story which is playing itself out around me.

The bride was called Sarah Miles. I pull up a picture of her, and she was beautiful. Too beautiful, too young, too happy to have to die. Her fiancé, Mark Hughes, committed suicide a few days later. I scan the articles for friends, relations, of either of them. Anyone with motive.

And then, quite suddenly, I find it. An interview with a man, taken about a year ago, raging at the police system for their inadequate punishment of the man who had taken from him both his sister and his best friend. Saying that it was only a few high-profile cases in which appropriate sentences were metered out. And that it was only when those in authority suffered that they understood what it felt like.

I look at the picture accompanying the article, and compare it to my photograph. Same man. John Miles. We have him. DNA, face, name. No escape for him now.

The sun is falling to the west, an hour or so from setting. The sky blazes a brilliant orange, pink vapour trails scouring lines above the rose-red clouds. I feel suddenly, violently, sorry for John Miles. Caught and pinned by fate, needing everyone else to feel the pain he's lived with for five years. Needing us to realise, needing to punish his sister's accidental killer. And now, when we find him, the rest of his life will be over, spent in a whitewashed cell.

But then there's the balance, as there always is. Miles has murdered two people, one of whom we still can't identify. He drugged Mac, and he attacked the two of us in the dark, and shot at us, probably hoping for a kill. But I still pity him, and share some understanding of his actions. Sometimes it's the hardest thing we do, having to catch the murderer. Two sides to every story.

I phone Flack, give him Miles's details, and email the appropriate files to his computer. Now it's only a matter of time.

I print out the articles I've saved, and slip them inside a cardboard folder. Walking through the lab, everywhere shines golden in the sunset from the wide windows, and Mac is also looking out at the sky as I enter his office. I hand the folder to him without speaking, and he opens it and skims through the articles, compares the photographs.

"You've told Flack?" he asks.

"Yes, phoned him."

He looks at me. "You're not happy, are you?"

I shake my head. "I feel so sorry for Miles. I shouldn't, but I do."

I wait for the lecture on how we serve the city, take murderers off the streets to protect the innocent, but today it's not forthcoming. "It's been a long day. Let's get something to eat."

I'm taken aback. "You're serious?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" he asks, surprised.

"Shouldn't we be trying to find Miles?"

"Flack'll be chasing him up. But if you'd rather not, don't worry."

I smile. "No, that'd be nice. Yeah, really nice. Where do you have in mind?"

"There's a café by the park. I go there sometimes."

- - - - -

By the time we get to the park, the clouds have begun to move in and the sun has disappeared behind the skyscrapers. We walk towards the café, but when we reach the door I turn and raise an eyebrow at Mac, before having to laugh at the embarrassment on his face, because the café closed at 5, which was quarter of an hour ago.

"Hotdogs it is then?" I say, grinning. "You're not too good at buying dinner for me, you know."

"Yeah, sorry about that," he says ruefully. "I guess it was earlier in the day when I last came here."

We buy hotdogs from a nearby street vendor and stroll along one of the paths in the park. "Why us?" I say.

"What do you mean?" Mac asks.

"Why do you think it was us that Miles picked? Neither of us had anything to do with that case."

He shakes his head slowly. "We're the visible ones, Stella. We're the ones who're there to take the fall when something goes down badly. I don't think Miles really cared who he targeted, all of us together represent those he feels betrayed him. And we're the ones he picked to hurt back."

"Do you ever wonder if it's worth it?" I ask. I gesture at the darkening sky, the trees, the city. "All this. We do all we can, but people still keep dying. Sometimes their murderers get away with it. Do you ever wish you had a normal job, doing something that wasn't a matter of life and death to those you deal with, something that didn't put you in danger every day? We do all this, and on occasion that something goes wrong, we're the scapegoats in the public eye, just like you were with Clay Dobson."

"It's always worth it," Mac says with conviction. "Always. If we don't do this, who will?"

"Uh-huh. You're right, I know, but sometimes it's hard to see it that way."

He smiles. "You'll get there. We all feel this sometimes."

We walk onwards in silence, both of us having finished eating. I've lost track of time, but the skies are growing darker, cloud cover now complete. Mac's phone rings, and he pulls it from his pocket.

"Taylor." He listens intently. "Ok, great. Yeah, pick him up, we'll head back now." He hangs up. "That was Flack. They've located Miles's apartment, and he's gone to bring him in. _With_ backup, as he was careful to emphasise."

"That's good news." We turn around and retrace our steps. A drop of rain falls, then another. We increase our pace, but before we've taken more than a few strides the heavens open and the pouring rain drenches me through my light jumper. I put my hands up to shield my face from the falling water as best I can. Mac's probably faring better in his jacket. It's hard to see any distance at all through the sheets of water being thrown at us from the sky by the bucket-load, especially in the dusk. I can't remember how far away the café, and the road, is, but I don't want to be out in this any longer than I have to. It doesn't feel safe out here anymore.

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**A/N: Penultimate chapter. I'm sure you know what that means. Not much longer to wait now! Thank you for reading and reviewing. Blue x**


	15. Chapter 15

I don't hear a warning. The rain hides the crunch of leaves, the snap of a twig, the rustle of branches. What I do hear is Mac. I hear him shout, quickly, wordlessly. And I turn. I turn. And this is when my world stops. A pause between one heartbeat and the next stretches on and on for all eternity. Cold phantom fingers stroking my spine, far, far colder than the rain.

Because there, there's Mac. And there, there's a man whose name and face I now know. And there's a gun held to Mac's head, pressed to the area beside the jaw, below the ear. And Mac doesn't move, and stares at me with wide eyes. I freeze. I don't dare to make any movements at all in case it gets him killed.

"Kneel," says John Miles to Mac. His voice is low, cultured, and perfectly steady. The thought slips into my head that he's been through this in his mind many times before.

Mac kneels.

"Neither of you do anything stupid, or the other one dies," Miles says. "Detective Taylor, for you that includes talking. You don't say_anything_, understand?"

Mac nods.

"Good. Now, take out your phone and your gun, one at a time, and throw them there, beneath that tree. Don't even think about trying to dial anyone on your phone first."

I watch helplessly as Mac complies. His gun and phone make soft pathetic thumps as they hit the mud. Raindrops hit them and scatter into pieces.

Miles turns to face me. "Now you. Phone and weapon."

I pull my phone out of my pocket and toss it away from me gently. "I'm not armed," I say.

"You expect me to believe that?"

"We're not here on duty," I tell him, mouth dry. "My gun's in my coat, in the car. I didn't expect to be needing it." I raise my arms, the sodden jumper flattened against my body showing no tell-tale bulge of a holster at my side. He nods. If I was wearing a jacket instead of a jumper he'd never consider even for a second that I was telling the truth. Mac's eyes burn into mine, and I know that he knows too that I'm gambling with both our lives, risking them on the almost-knowledge that Miles won't search me, that he needs all of us to stay in these exact positions to retain control of the situation.

"Just put the gun down, John," I say. "No one has to get hurt here."

"Yes they do," he says very calmly. "Someone will. Either Detective Taylor or you is going to die."

"John, this isn't going to bring Sarah back, or Mark. You know that."

"Yes, I know that," he says. His tone doesn't rise at all. This is all rehearsed, planned. He's already worked out his answers to the standard questions he expected to be asked. I let him talk. "I'm not doing this for them, or for me. I'm doing this so that you know what it feels like to have to stand and watch as someone you care for dies. Then maybe next time you'll punish a murderer as he deserves to be punished. I'm doing this so that maybe less people have to go through what I have."

"John, we don't set sentences. We can't change the laws."

"No, put you present the case to the jury. They act on your recommendations. You're the police, and isn't your motto 'To Protect and Serve'? You're supposed to protect us from people who take lives, just like Sarah's life was taken from her. But then, I wouldn't expect _you_ to understand that murderers need to be locked away, Detective Bonasera. After all, you're still walking the streets yourself."

A surge of hot anger rises up at his words, but I fight it back down again. Frankie's ghost isn't going to claim either of us if I can help it. "Shooting Mac isn't going to alter the law, John. You know that. You could have killed us before, in the subway, but you chose not to."

"You didn't know who I was then," he says simply. "You didn't know _why_. Now you do."

All this time I'm conscious of the handle of the gun digging into the small of my back. A standard issue weapon, smaller than my Glock which is currently being held as evidence. It didn't fit in my holster. The attack in the subway may yet save our lives. But at present it's taunting me, worse than useless. In the time it would take to pull it from where I tucked it beneath my jumper into the waistband at the back of my trousers and aim it, Mac would be dead. Most probably, so would I. _Keep him talking,_ I think. _Don't give him time to make up his mind to pull the trigger._

"Did you kill Acorn?" I ask. Maybe not the best subject of conversation, but the cold water lashing my head and dripping through my hair seems to have numbed my brain. Nothing seems real. Through the waves of falling water the trees are faded, ghost-grey. Or maybe we're the ghosts.

"You know I did."

"Where's his body?"

"Why does it matter?" He sounds slightly surprised. It seems he hasn't prepared for this question.

"We need to find him. You don't want someone who has nothing to do with this – someone else's sister maybe – to stumble over his body, to have to see that?"

He considers for a second. "He's behind one of those abandoned warehouses, by the construction site on the near side of the Hudson, you know it?"

"Yes, I know where you mean. Thank you John." I pause. "Can you tell me who the other man is? The one you shot?"

For the first time, Miles's face contorts with emotion. The hand holding the gun shakes, until he realises and controls it, but he can't stop his voice from shaking too. "He – he was Sarah's boyfriend. Before Mark. He was called Russell Jones. He beat her up, and we called the police on him, Mark and I, but he skipped town before they did anything about it. He moved back six months ago. Then – he started sending me letters. Saying – saying that it was my fault Sarah died. That he would have protected her. That neither Mark or I had ever loved her!" He fiercely wipes his hand across his eyes, although the rain would have prevented me seeing him crying. "I couldn't… I couldn't bear it."

"And when you decided you needed a body to get our attention…"

He nods, his face wretched. "I killed him. I had to kill him."

"John, it's alright. I understand." Somehow, I do, even though the thought of what Miles did to that man horrifies me. "Believe me, we both understand what it's like to lose someone you love." I speak soothingly to him, although I'm terrified. I'm still playing for time, and soon I'll have no ideas left.

"_He_ does." Miles jabs the barrel of the gun hard against Mac's neck. He jerks in pain, but makes no sound. "You don't, not yet. But soon you will."

For the first time in a while I risk a glance at Mac's face. It's pale, and I can't tell if it's from fear or from the chill of kneeling in the driving rain and the cold mud. His eyes are fixed on mine. Strands of dark hair are plastered to his scalp and rivulets of water run down the creases of his face, which I know so well. I wonder how the world would be able to turn, how the rain would ever be able to stop, if he were gone. The freezing needles of rain pierce right through my body, turning my lungs and my heart to ice. I stare into the grey eyes of Mac Taylor, and I forget all my training, forget everything I've ever been told about hostage situations. All that matters is getting Mac out of this alive. "Please," I say, my voice only just loud enough to be heard through the drumming of water on the sodden ground and on the trees. "Please, not him, not Mac. Don't shoot him."

Miles lifts the corners of his mouth into a smile. "See? Not nice is it, to be completely helpless? To know that whatever you try, he'll still end up dead?"

"Please," I say again, and I'm looking straight at Mac now, straight into his eyes, wishing I could pour my life into his, strong enough to repel a bullet. His dark red shirt is almost black with water, but is still the brightest colour I can see. My voice is louder, stronger, and right now there's nothing else in the world apart from us and what I want to say. "Please. Anything. _Anything._"

Miles is saying something, still smiling, but I'm not listening. All my attention is focused on Mac as he lowers his head, almost imperceptibly, and lifts it again. A nearly unnoticeable nod. I know that he trusts me absolutely, and I trust him. We both know what I want him to do. If he dies now it will be my fault. I watch his hand, out of Miles's sightline. I watch, every muscle in my body tensed, as he tucks his thumb and little finger out of sight. His remaining fingers jerk in sequence, ever so slightly, as droplets drip from his nails. One. Two. Three.

I snap my attention to a spot above and behind Miles, and yell harshly, briefly. He instinctively jumps, glancing half-behind him, and Mac moves. He slams his arm into Miles's wrist, forcing the gun away from his head, and pushes himself up and forwards, away from him, giving me the seconds I need to reach behind me and grab my weapon, before Miles can realise what's happening. The scene freezes again, a silent tableau, caught in a last curtain-call of rain, which intensifies again to great driving drilling drumming sheets.

Mac stands almost directly between us, unarmed. I'm aimed at Miles, and Miles is aimed at Mac.

"Welcome to the rest of your life, Stella Bonasera," Miles says.

He fires.

So do I.

Time slows, slows. The raindrops fall inexorably through a suddenly viscous sky. I think that I can almost see his bullet leave the barrel and blast its path through the atoms of the air, splitting and scattering hundreds and hundreds of water droplets which throw themselves in front of its burning metal body in a vain attempt to slow its unstoppable passing.

That bullet, and mine, run straight along the sheer sharpness of the knife-edge. Right along that thin line between life and death.

Between hope and no hope.

Between love and loss.

The thin thread of the fates stretched taut. Ready to be cut.

But Mac's a Marine, and trained in combat, and he was moving even as the bullet left Miles's gun, flinging himself down, and now he's lying on his front in the mud, and I can't even tell whether or not he's been hit. Miles lies still. A rose-shaped stain blooms on his wet shirt, the same colour as the roses he left for us to follow. I pause to kick the gun out of his hand, and turn to Mac.

Who's getting up. Unhurt. My hands are shaking so much that I can't hold my gun anymore, and I let it fall to the mud. He stands.

"Stella."

"Mac. Mac, you ok?"

"I'm fine. Thank you. Thank you."

"I nearly got you killed. I could've killed you."

"You didn't. You saved me. I'm here, I'm alright. It's over now."

I look at the body of John Miles, and I find I'm crying for him, because even after everything he did, I pity him, and I wish he wasn't dead, by my hand.

Mac pulls me into a fierce hug, and I clutch him tightly, the only solid thing in a world of water in which I'm afraid I'll drown. In a minute we'll have to call this in, have to go through the weary process of statements, and explaining, but right here, right now, there's only us. I press my head to Mac's chest, hearing his lungs still drawing air in and out. Hear his heart still beating. He holds me close.

"We're both still here," he says. "Both here. It's over."

And the heavy raindrops run down my face, washing away my tears.

**FIN**

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**A/N: ****Well, the end. Thank you for sticking with me, I hope the ending was worth it! Thank you to all you wonderful people who've been reviewing, and also to the lurkers. It isn't too late, you know! ;)**

** Watch this space, more stories coming soon! Blue x  
**


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